Indiegogo Raises $15M for Crowdfunding; Insight and Khosla Invest

The crowdfunding platform has closed a $15 million Series A round to scale operations and vanquish its large and growing list of competitors.

Insight Venture Partners led the Series A round with participation from new investor Khosla Ventures and existing investors Metamorphic Ventures, MHS Capital, ffVenture Capital, and Zynga Inc. co-founder Steve Schoettler.

Since Slava Rubin co-founded Indiegogo in 2008 as a platform for people to raise money for projects ranging from fertility treatments and tech start-ups to film documentaries, he says more than 400 competitors have launched.

And now, thanks to the recent JOBS Act that would allow non-accredited investors to back ventures in exchange for equity, that number could grow even larger.

"This $15 million is to improve the product. I probably have a queue of 791 things I need to do," said Mr. Rubin. "We need to improve the user experience to make sure people can discover campaigns better, create frictionless funding and ensure campaign owners have the tools they need to better promote their campaigns and get exposure."

Like Kickstarter Inc., Fundable Inc. and other crowdfunding sites, Indiegogo allows people to post projects they are working on that need financial backing.

Investors contribute whatever amount they want. They get perks from the company and, assuming the JOBS Act is finalized, will get equity in the project as well starting next year.

Indiegogo, which operates in 196 countries, now features more than 100,000 projects. About 5,000 of them are active in any given month, with the average investor pledging $74, Mr. Rubin said.

Mr. Rubin said he expects to increase headcount at the 20-person San Francisco company, but declined to estimate by how much or how fast.

He said the recent funding round came together in just a matter of weeks.

Indiegogo previously raised a $1.5 million seed round.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the way in which Indiegogo projects are funded.)